Infrastructure cost will rule out widespread use of electricity, hydrogen, says car maker.

Hydrogen not the answer: Ford

Development of low-CO2 liquids is a better bet for future fuelling than electricity or hydrogen predicts a Ford engine expert.

Andrew Fraser, Ford’s European gasoline engine development boss, says the prohibitive cost of setting up new delivery infrastructures for electricity or gaseous fuels means liquid alternatives to petrol and diesel such as ethanol and biodiesel are a better bet as they could be delivered through the existing service station networks.

“Installing a parallel infrastructure for electricity or gaseous fuels … would be a massive, expensive undertaking,” he told Drive . “The liquid fuel infrastructure is all there and it all works. All that process has been set up and paid for

“So the enduring logic in me says using that existing process to distribute a different form of fuel that wouldn’t be as CO2 intensive makes a lot of sense.”

Car companies are being forced to focus on CO2 emissions by tightening EU requirements that will force them to hit an average CO2 emissions rate of 95 grams per km across their ranges of cars by 2020. That means cars sold in the calendar year, not just theoretically offered to the public.

Fraser believes the development low CO2 liquid fuels for mass use could be driven by the needs of the trucking industry.

Heavy haulers simply require too much power for alternative forms of energy such as electricity to be a credible alternative.

“There is no realistic scenario barring some mind boggling battery breakthrough which makes an electric truck feasible,” says Fraser. “The only feasible solution (for future trucking fuel) anyone can see is biodiesel because they are actually pretty efficient machines in terms of tonnes carried per gallon of diesel burned.

“So I hope the trucks will drive development in biodiesel, which may flow through then into ethanols, butanols or the other alcohols for spark-ignition engines.”